Sri Pandit gives us an overview of Sri Aurobindo's life, his writings and his Integral Yoga. In doing so, he takes time to introduce the major principles of yoga and relates in a simple yet dynamic form the path open to the seekers of spiritual perfection.

Since his death in 1950, Sri Aurobindo Ghose has been known primarily as a yogi and a philosopher of spiritual evolution who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in peace and literature. But the years Aurobindo spent in yogic retirement were preceded by nearly four decades of rich public and intellectual work. Biographers usually focus solely on Aurobindo's life as a politician or sage, but he was also a scholar, a revolutionary, a poet, a philosopher, a social and cultural theorist, and the inspiration for an experiment in communal living. Peter Heehs, one of the founders of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, is the first to relate all the aspects of Aurobindo's life in its entirety. Consulting rare primary sources, Heehs describes the leader's role in the freedom movement and in the framing of modern Indian spirituality. He examines the thinker's literary, cultural, and sociological writings and the Sanskrit, Bengali, English, and French literature that influenced them, and he finds the foundations of Aurobindo's yoga practice in his diaries and unpublished letters. Heehs's biography is a sensitive, honest portrait of a life that also provides surprising insights into twentieth-century Indian history.

ABOUT THE BOOK:Sri Aurobindo has developed an original system of the Vedanta called Integral Advaitism. This book gives a systematic, thorough and authentic exposition of his thought. The fundamental and living issues, namely, the concept of the Absol

About the Book The Journey of Advaita elucidates the richness, depth and profundity of Advaitic thought right from Vedas to Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo and further how it is being incorporated in modern science. Advaita Philosophy is not a later development of thought as one of the six systems of Indian philosophy. Vedas are replete with suggestions about Unity. The earlier stage of naturalistic and anthropomorphic polytheism yielded to monistic belief. In the dictum, ekam sad viprā bahudhā vadanti we perceive an echo of Unity. Upaniṣadic seers picked up this Unity and tirelessly went in their search till they came to the highest conclusion, tat tvam asi. This concept of Unity gets its full bloom in Śaṅkara’s Kevalādvaita; later on it gave inspiration to different rivulets of Vedānta schools. Śaṅkara’s unqualified impersonal Brahman could not satisfy those who sought loving communion with God. Consequently different schools of Bhakti-Vedānta came into existence, namely, Viśiṣṭādvaita of Rāmānuja, Dvaita of Madhva, Dvaitādvaita of Nimbārka and Śuddhādvaita of Vallabha. For all of them the emphasis is on the liberation of individual soul only, which gave way to Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Advaitism where the emphasis is not only on spiritualization of man but of the whole cosmos. The journey continues further with modern physics. Consciousness is the building block of the Universe and the ground of all beings, which can’t be found in plural. About the Author Dr Priti Sinha retired as the Head, Department of Philosophy, Vasanta College, Banaras Hindu University after twenty-eight years of service. An alumnus of the university, she holds a doctorate and postgraduate degrees, both in Philosophy as well as Religion and Philosophy. She has been recognized for her work in several national and international seminars. An accomplished musician, Dr Sinha has the distinction of choreographing dance dramas, human puppetry and designing costumes for stage plays, especially historical dramas.

This study attempts to elucidate a possible meeting point of the traditions of Eastern and Western metaphysical thinking. In discussing Whitehead’s and Aurobindo’s views on being and becoming, it seeks the possibility of a better engagement between the East and the West in the light of the philosophical insights. It is an initiation into the Sitz im Leben of Whitehead’s philosophy and his general thought pattern. It carries a perceptive analysis to show the clear primacy of Becoming or Process in Whitehead that extends even to the Divine. It also highlights Aurobindo as a unique Indian Philosopher, who articulated Indian thought in Western categories. He was able to integrate the evolutionary theory of the West with the Indian understanding of becoming. The relationship between God and Creativity and Sachchidananda and the Supermind is studied within the context of Enlightenment and Modernity and the way of doing philosophy in the West and in the East.

The book Indian and Western Aesthetics in Sri Aurobindo’s Criticism is a comparative study of Indian and western aesthetics. It depicts the beauty of evolution of multiplicity of theories to vastness of concepts postulated by different literary theoreticians. Moreover, it gives a keen insight into Sri Aurobindo’s aesthetics. His criticism has given the complete synthesis of Indian poetic theories which have striking parallels to modern Western literary theories. He is one of the greatest literary critics who recovered the salient principles of ancient Indian aesthetics and their potentialities. His aesthetics accommodated many modern trends on the foundation of Indian culture that is going to be the mantra of new civilization.